THE RIGHT TO FORGET
In Germany, the overlap of Informational Self-determination and Freedom of Panorama creates the conditions for Google Street View photos to be blurred upon the homeowner’s request, generating a city-wide collective memory loss. This process is matched with another similar effect: the disregard for former building designs during periods of intense reconstruction, underpinned by economic, stylistic, and political motives. The installation presents four blocks from Berlin Mitte, bombed in 1945 and partially rebuilt under the Soviet regime. The continuous cityscape, composed of Google Street View images (2008) and reproduced at 1:100 scale, collapses horizontally, hinging around its blurred houses, reducing its footprint and showing exclusively what is not forgotten.
